CHARLES D'AVENANT

The soil of no country is rich enough to attain a great mass of wealth, merely by the exchange and exportation of its own natural product.

The most dangerous diseases with which a free country can be infested, are two fashions, each strong in numbers, if their heats and animosities are come to such a height, that any side, in the struggle for power, is willing to give up liberty, rather than their irregular appetites should be disappointed. Where this happens to be the case, the condition of the public is indeed very desperate, inasmuch as liberty cannot subsist, unless where it has a great many more friends than enemies, because they who attack, supply by craft and diligence what they want in other strengths.

In a trading nation, the bent of all the laws should tend to the encouragement of commerce, and all measures should be there taken, with a due regard to its interest and advancement.

Considering our luxury, and our great expense of foreign wares here at home, we could not have grown rich without other dealings in the world.

Men in their private capacities may be allowed to prefer their single profit, but should consult only the general good in public councils.

The act for maintenance of the poor is the true bane and destruction to all the English manufactures in general. For it apparently encourages sloth and beggary; whereas if the legislative power would make some good provision, that workhouses might in every parish be erected, and the poor, such as are able, compelled to work, so many new hands might thereby be brought in, as would indeed make the English manufactures flourish.

The most dangerous diseases with which a free country can be infested, are two fashions, each strong in numbers, if their heats and animosities are come to such a height, that any side, in the struggle for power, is willing to give up liberty, rather than their irregular appetites should be disappointed. Where this happens to be the case, the condition of the public is indeed very desperate, inasmuch as liberty cannot subsist, unless where it has a great many more friends than enemies, because they who attack, supply by craft and diligence what they want in other strengths.

The act for maintenance of the poor is the true bane and destruction to all the English manufactures in general. For it apparently encourages sloth and beggary; whereas if the legislative power would make some good provision, that workhouses might in every parish be erected, and the poor, such as are able, compelled to work, so many new hands might thereby be brought in, as would indeed make the English manufactures flourish.

In a trading nation, the bent of all the laws should tend to the encouragement of commerce, and all measures should be there taken, with a due regard to its interest and advancement.

Men in their private capacities may be allowed to prefer their single profit, but should consult only the general good in public councils.

Considering our luxury, and our great expense of foreign wares here at home, we could not have grown rich without other dealings in the world.

The soil of no country is rich enough to attain a great mass of wealth, merely by the exchange and exportation of its own natural product.